Math Games
When you think about it, games are just a way to incorporate fun into any learning experience. And when it comes to a somewhat dry topic like math, games are a perfect way to make lesson time go by more quickly and to help each new math concept more understandable for the student in your home. Many times parents are as baffled and intimidated as the kids are when they come home with math homework0. So if your child's teacher sends along games that make each lesson more interesting and understandable, that’s a huge leap forward.
Games that make math enjoyable are not "dumbing down" the discipline of math. If anything, they are using math in the way that makes the most sense, in an applied situation. Games take an abstract math idea and make it usable and concrete by putting it into a challenge that tickles the mind with a scenario or a puzzle while making the math principle spring to life. That is one reason games are by far one of the best teaching techniques that any math teacher can use. And they are great ways for you as parents to help your kids "sink their teeth" into math.
If the teacher of your son or daughters math class does not send home at least one or two games to match up with each new math concept, it may not be the teacher's fault. Math textbooks are notoriously dry and often the homework that is sent home is nothing more than various abstract formulas using the new math idea with nothing concrete for the student to use as a point of contact to the idea. So if the math teaching aids did not come with games, the teacher may not have had the time to look for good games to add to the homework or he or she may be constrained to only use the homework that was provided.
But that doesn’t mean you as a parent are so constrained. The internet is bursting with homework help web sites that you can often access for free or for a reasonable fee. By tapping into a section of a math tutorial web site that fits your child's curriculum, you can find activities to fit each and every lesson or math idea. Using these supplemental materials, you can design a system fro you to use at home to get the kids over their math phobia and help you past those fears as well.
You can use the games you find as a reward for doing the preliminary work of reading the material, discussing it with the parent who is becoming the child's math tutor and trying a few homework problems. Then when a serious effort has been made, the games can begin. The enjoyable part of the game will be made better because the student took on the problems beforehand. As an understanding of the math principle comes upon your child, that "ah ha" moment will be precious. Then the student can finish their math homework with ease. The math concept is well entrenched in his or her brain and the student goes to school prepared and confident each day. That is the kind of program that make math a favorite subject rather than the one your child and you dread each year.
